Author, academic and digital thinker Douglas Rushkoff joined the Mediatwits to discuss his new book, "Present Shock" along with zombies, "Real Housewives" and more

This week’s Mediatwits podcast includes a Yahoo, a shocking book, an academic appointment and a D.I.Y. magazine kit. Our roundtable includes Mark Glaser hosting, along with Seattle Times’ Monica Guzman, Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox, Reuters’ Felix Salmon and USC’s Andrew Lih. Our special guest is author and digital thinking Douglas Rushkoff, whose latest book, “Present Shock,” looks at our overloaded, overmediated lives. We also wonder what Yahoo is doing, buying the Summly app and its 17-year-old CEO for $30 million, and considering a purchase of Dailymotion. Plus, Columbia appointed its new dean, Steve Coll, who took flak for not having tweeted, and Flipboard 2.0 lets anyone create their own digital magazine quickly and easily.

You can watch today’s show on video or listen to the audio below:

You've got scientists talking about the singularity, 'this will all end because computers will take over'...or in more popular culture, we imagine a zombie apocalypse." -Douglas Rushkoff

Mediatwits Bios

Ana Marie Cox is a senior political columnist for The Guardian. She is the founding editor of the Wonkette blog and has covered politics and the culture of Washington, DC for outlets including the Washington Post, Playboy, GQ, Mother Jones and Elle. She is the author of the novel Dog Days and lives in St. Paul, Minn. Follower her on Twitter @anamariecox.

Mónica Guzmán is a columnist for the Seattle Times and Northwest tech news site GeekWire and a community strategist for startups and media. She emcees Ignite Seattle, a grab-bag community fueled speaker series. Mónica was a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and seattlepi.com, its online-only successor, where she ran the experimental and award-winning Big Blog and drew a community of readers with online conversation and weekly meetups. Follow her on Twitter @moniguzman

Andrew Lih is a new media journalist, and associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism where he directs the new media program. He is the author of “The Wikipedia Revolution” (Hyperion 2009, Aurum UK 2009) and is a noted expert on online collaboration and journalism. He is a veteran of AT&T Bell Laboratories and in 1994 created the first online city guide for New York City (www.ny.com). Follow him on Twitter @fuzheado and buy his book here.

Felix Salmon is the financial blogger for Reuters. He was named one of Time Magazine’s 25 Best Financial Bloggers, and offers his frank view on the maneuverings of Wall Street, Washington and popular culture. Watch him on Felix TV or follow him on Twitter @felixsalmon.

Special Guest

Douglas Rushkoff is a world-renowned media theorist whose 12 books, including “Life, Inc.,” have won prestigious awards and have been translated into 30 languages. He is a commentator on CNN and a contributor to Time, Discover, and NPR. He also made the PBS documentaries “Merchants of Cool,” “The Persuaders,” and “Digital Nation.” Follow him on Twitter @Rushkoff.

Who We Are

MediaShift is the premier destination for insight and analysis at the intersection of media and technology. The MediaShift network includes MediaShift, EducationShift, MetricShift and Idea Lab, as well as workshops and weekend hackathons, email newsletters, a weekly podcast and a series of DigitalEd online trainings.